Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council for generously funding the research project Patterns of Principled Pacifism and Nonviolence in Contemporary Islam which informs this volume. I likewise thank the University of Manchester for providing a congenial environment in which to carry it out. I would furthermore like to thank my Co-Investigator and Post-Doctoral Research Associate on that project, Professor Andrew Fiala and Dr Walaa Quisay. Both of their insights have been as invaluable as their patience has been immeasurable. Special thanks is also due to the proponents of nonviolent Islam who very kindly agreed to be interviewed at length as part of this book’s composition: Amina Khoulani, Rabia Harris, Professor Chaiwat Satha-Anand, John Muhammad Butt, and Dr Haytham Alhamwy. I would like to thank Dr Paula Pizzi both for fascinating conversations on the late Syrian peace activist Jawdat Said and for making some of his letters available to me. I also offer thanks to those speakers at the conference on Pacifism in Islam held at the University of Manchester in May 2022 who have not already been mentioned: Tawakkol Karman, Abdullah Aloudh, Abdulrahman Abdullahi, Abla Hassan, Alexandre Christoyannopolous, David Warren, Iymon Majid, Juan Cole, Juliane Hammer, Mohammad Affan, Safoora Arbab, Seif Alislam Eid, and Tazeen Ali. Thanks also to reviewers at Cambridge University Press and to colleagues at conferences of the Middle East Studies Association and the American Philosophical Association who responded to presentations of elements of this research. Thanks are due to Ahmad Ghassab for his calligraphic renderings of Quran 5:16 which adorn this volume.

Finally, I as always thank my wife, Abby, and our beloved daughters, Beatrix and Ottilie.

English translations from the Quran follow the Yusuf Ali version. All other translations from Arabic, French, and German are the author’s own unless otherwise attributed. Translations from Persian, Pashto, and Wolof languages are those of the authors cited. Transliteration from Arabic follows the conventions of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

All errors, both of omission and of commission, are of course my own.